


'cause i just can't look (it's killing me)

by fullsxn



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Short One Shot, Sort Of, Steve Harrington Is a Mess, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington-centric, Steve is sad, The Party is only mentioned, Trauma, Underage Drinking, Whump, bear with me here, billy is also only mentioned so, i put a lot of myself into this fic for some reason, so is jonathan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 23:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullsxn/pseuds/fullsxn
Summary: But him? He was just regular old Steve Harrington, the kids’ chauffeur and part-time babysitter, and the one who had only even been there to experience half of the things everyone else had. He didn't have the right to feel traumatized. Hell, the only remotely “traumatizing” thing he’d gone through was Billy smashing a plate on his head, and that had been one time. One measly thing compared to the dozens of the others.-post season 2/in between seasons 2 and 3rated teen for swearing





	'cause i just can't look (it's killing me)

**Author's Note:**

> both steve and nancy are a bit OOC so bear with me here  
this started off as a really short drabble but escalated into a slightly longer one-shot with half of a plot  
btw the entire thing is kind of a mess? but it's also kind of on purpose because steve is Struggling™ and i wanted to showcase that. he might say some contradicting things throughout the book but it's done on purpose! just keep that in mind.  
title is from by mr. brightside by the killers

February 13th, 1985, 12:03 AM.  
-  
Steve was strong.

For God’s sake, he had to be. He had to be the reassuring words and the gentle pats on the backs when no one else would. He had to be the logical one, the one who wasn't afraid in the face of danger. He had to fulfill his duty and there was no way in hell Steve would neglect his duty to protect those kids. He loved them to death, and he wouldn’t trade them for the world.

But Steve couldn’t say the same for Nancy and Jonathan.

They were practically living, breathing reminders of how badly he’d screwed up. As opposed to the warm, homey feeling the kids emitted, the only thing those two made him feel was the sudden urge to crawl into a hole and never come out. Their presence made his blood run cold. It made his ears ring with the sound of "you’re bullshit" over and over again and the sickening noise of Jonathan punching him in the face. It made the memory of his and Nancy’s breakup pound in his head against his will, her not being able to tell him she loved him. It made his own words towards Jonathan come flooding back to him like a tsunami, knocking him over until he didn't have the strength nor the motivation to get back up.

The way he perceived Nancy and Jonathan was pathetic, dear God he knew it too well and too hard. He knew it should be them who felt anger towards Steve. He shouldn’t be the one sitting on the side of his pool, too emotionally drained to do much else.

The water of the pool rippled before his eyes as he dangled his feet in the water, not daring to go any further in fear of being... taken. Sure, to most the fear he was experiencing sounded crazy, but he knew better than to believe “you’re just being paranoid, man up” at this point. What had happened to Will and Barb was no accident on the Demogorgen’s part, and even though he knew El had supposedly closed the gate, there was no harm in being cautious.

The mere memory of Nancy’s best friend caused the image of her sitting on the very diving board to his left to stir in his mind and he jerked his feet out of the pool, heart still pounding as he made his way inside, not bothering to dry himself off before doing so.

In some ways, he almost felt unqualified to have trauma from what had happened. He wasn’t Will, who had been trapped in the Upside Down for so long and had been practically enslaved by the Mind Flayer. He wasn’t El, who had been stuck in a lab for half her life and hadn’t had the chance to experience a real childhood or even real happiness. He wasn’t even Jonathan, who had to watch all this shit happen to his brother and his mother practically go crazy.

But him? He was just regular old Steve Harrington, the kids’ chauffeur and part-time babysitter, and the one who had only even been there to experience half of the things everyone else had. He didn't have the right to feel traumatized. Hell, the only remotely “traumatizing” thing he’d gone through was Billy smashing a plate on his head, and that had been one time. One measly thing compared to the dozens of the others.

He bit his lip, stopping where he was standing in the kitchen and clenching his fists at his sides before letting them go and continuing to walk further inside.

The fridge was almost as bare as the house it stood in, holding merely a few cases of beer along with a bottle of wine he’d been meaning to have with Nancy before they broke up. The date had never ended up happening, and he’d never bothered to do anything with it. He had no good reason to waste good wine.

He grabbed a beer and collapsed onto the couch, too damn tired to brave the stairs and risk getting another concussion. The cushions underneath him were plush and he sank into them gratefully, feebly pulling a blanket over himself and hoping nothing would come and kill him in his sleep as he feared something would, despite his constant and failed reminders to himself that the chances of that were now incredibly low thanks to El. 

The couch seemed to be his permanent home now. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d used his bedroom for anything other than sex, although, even that had been with Nancy, and that was a billion years ago now.

"I may be a shitty boyfriend, but turns out I’m a pretty damn good babysitter," he’d told Nancy. And when she’d tried to tell him something afterwards, all he’d said was, "it’s okay."

Was it, though? Was it actually? Is everything “okay” if you feel as if your heart has been smashed into a million pieces and no one stopped to care? Steve hoped so, because he wasn't in the mood for dealing with his own declining mental health.

He buried his face into one of the cushions, feeling a headache coming on, and decided against lying awake and wondering what he could have done to keep his relationship with Nancy from crumbling and allowing Jonathan to pick up the pieces.

He knew he needed to move on. He just didn't know how to, or even if he could. She had been his motivation, the reason he felt so excited to actually get out of bed in the morning.

But he couldn't let his mind wander too much tonight. He was too tired.

Drifting off to sleep felt like a much needed escape from reality, and he welcomed it gladly.  
-  
February 13th, 1985, 11:47 AM  
-  
Waking up the next morning was arguably the worst decision he ever made.

Everything was spinning for the first few seconds after he woke, along with his head throbbing like a bitch. It only took him a moment to realise that maybe not sleeping very often due to nightmares was not the best idea, and he cursed at himself under his breath before forcing himself up, picking up the beer bottle that lay tipped over on the rug next to the sofa as he did so.

The doorbell suddenly rang as he was making his way to the kitchen, and Steve was so startled he dropped the beer bottle with a string of curse words escaping his lips simultaneously. 

Through his hazy vision, he could vaguely make out someone standing at his front porch, and he groaned. Socializing was the exact opposite of what he wanted to be doing at that moment. He stumbled towards the door anyway, though, opening it and trying to look as awake as possible.

And, just his luck, the person who happened to be standing outside his door was none other than Nancy Wheeler.

The first thing he noticed was that she looked distressed, almost upset, and for a second, the tiniest second, he wondered if she’d come to check up on him, make sure he wasn’t dead. But the thought passed in a second, and he pretended his heart didn’t sink as he realised it was probably about Jonathan. Because this was Nancy he was talking about, and the only thing Nancy would ever come to Steve about voluntarily was her relationship problems.

“Nancy,” he said, wincing when he realised how annoyed he sounded.

“Steve,” she began, “listen, I need your help.”

“You need MY help?”

You’re bullshit.

“I know, shocking.”

You’re bullshit.

Steve pursed his lips, ignoring the painful memories and let her inside, hoping she wouldn’t notice the broken glass on the floor along with its alcoholic contents.

Unfortunately, nothing was on his side today.

“Is that a broken beer bottle?” she asked with a frown, narrowing her eyes. “Steve, what the hell have you been doing?”

“Nothing, I swear! I just dropped it by accident and haven’t cleaned it up yet,” he told her quickly, bending down to pick up the pieces of glass. He acted as if it didn’t hurt when one of the pieces cut him and simply continued to gather them in his other hand, tossing them in the garbage and ignoring his bleeding finger.

“So, what happened with your boyfriend this time?” he started, turning to face her and hoping he wasn’t grimacing.

She sighed. “We fought,” she said. “Which, you know, is normal for couples and everything, but we don’t usually fight.” 

“Oh shit, a fight, that’s completely unheard of.” Yes, his shitty humour was his own self-proclaimed unhealthy coping mechanism. 

“Steve.”

“Sorry, continue.”

“He got this photography job,” she continued, “and he has to take pictures of girls in swimsuits.” Hostility and almost betrayal flared in her eyes, and Steve instinctively flinched, knowing that had been the exact expression she’d been wearing that night at the Halloween party.

“So?” he finally replied with a shrug, trying to act casual. “It’s not like he’s doing anything with them, right? I mean, it’s Jonathan, he wouldn’t cheat.”

“He could have at least, I don’t know, warned me or asked me or something.” She let out a defeated sigh. “I just wish he’d given me heads-up before he agreed to it.”

He hadn’t been lying, he really did think the whole thing seemed a bit stupid for her to be so worked up about. So what if Jonathan’s goddamn job required taking photos of swimsuit models? It wasn’t as if they were nude. He wasn’t a porn photographer.

But Steve confessed that he admired the way Nancy was able to be so angry yet keep her temper in check at the same time. The way she would sit there as she underwhelmingly ranted, listening afterwards to all the advice he had to offer instead of going off and making a rash decision as he knew he himself would. He knew that was supposed to be a basic human skill, but it was something he knew he lacked. Every time he was angry he ended up crying or yelling or swearing, and he hated it, he really did, but he’d given up at this point. Besides, it was easier now. He’d been angry at so many things for so long it was almost as if he was void of the majority of human emotion, spending most of his spare time drinking or wondering why he’d done what he’d done in the past. Wondering why he was such a screw-up.

Steve knew Nancy had never acted like this when they were together. She’d never been the jealous type, or at least that was what he thought when they were dating, and he now realised this was because she truly cared about Jonathan. She wanted him all to herself, something she never felt with Steve, presumably because, oh yeah, everything is bullshit and she didn’t love him and probably never had.

The memories of their past dates were bittersweet. On one hand, it made him smile, because he’d been truly happy at that point, having been validated and supposedly loved by the most beautiful girl he knew. On the other hand, however, those memories were over and would never happen again.

And it wasn’t just that. At that point, Steve had still been the asshole that had insulted Jonathan’s family and let Tommy write Nancy Wheeler the Slut in bright red paint on the sign for the movie theatre for everyone to see. So, deep down, he didn’t exactly blame her for breaking up with him (and wasn’t proud of who he’d been back then) but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“Well, that’s fair,” he said evenly, sipping a glass of water. “But you have to trust him, Nance. You have to trust he’ll stay loyal to you.” He forced a pained smile. “He loves you, I know he will.”

Speaking those seven words tore him up inside, but he’d never admit it. Never admit he respected Nancy and Jonathan as individuals but despised them together. Never admit he hated the fact that he was single. Never admit he so desperately wanted something, someone, for him to lean on.

Nancy looked up at him, her eyes now filled with something he couldn’t quite place. Her face was firm now, though, and he barely caught her slightly nodding to what he’d been saying.

There was so much he wanted to say, so much of his heart he wanted to pour out, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to form the words to tell her how much pain she’d put him through when she’d gone through twice as much, to tell her he was sorry when it was too late, that her presence made him want to disappear because all she did was remind him of how fucked up he was.

He couldn’t say any of that.

“Just… trust him, okay? You guys will work it out, you always do. Jonathan’s an honest guy.”

He patted her on the shoulder and she nodded, thanking him for listening to her.

“Thanks for listening, Steve. Really, it means a lot.”

Right. 

She flashed her signature smile - the one that Steve had fallen in love with so long ago - and he just chuckled in response, even though it hurt, saying a quick you’re welcome and closed the door after she waved goodbye. He watched as she disappeared around the corner of the street and sighed, wondering if he was somehow drunk. That would be the only explanation for the mess of emotions he nearly exposed to Nancy.

He hissed under his breath as he realised his finger was still bleeding, grabbing a Kleenex box and a box of Band-Aids to keep on the end table beside the couch. He was honestly just glad she hadn’t noticed the wound, that would have been a whole other fiasco. He could just hear her now... Steve, it could get infected, and why the HELL would you pick up broken glass without any gloves of some sort? You need to start looking out for yourself?

It could go on and on and on.

He then went back to being emotionally exhausted, drinking the rest of his water and trying to keep himself from going for another beer before ten o’clock.

He was fine.

Everything was fine.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is always appreciated :)


End file.
